Attitudes towards Obamacare: in the end, what it all boils down to…
…may just be whether you believe health care insurance is redistributive justice, or whether you believe it’s, you know, health care insurance.
A lot of Obamacare opponents have said, “Don’t piss on my back and tell me it’s raining.”
I think it’s a lot worse than that. It’s more like, “Don’t piss on my back and tell me it’s wine.”
[NOTE: See this.]
“…may just be whether you believe health care insurance is redistributive justice, or whether you believe it’s, you know, health care insurance.”
Or, if you believe that health insurance should cover every little thing that could happen. Comparing it to auto insurance, it would be like wanting GEICO to pay for your oil changes.
I’m also forced to wonder if the current attitude towards insurance stems from how we, as a society, have become increasingly risk-averse in recent years, to the point where have to bubble-wrap everyone to keep them from hurting themselves.
inkraven:
The idea behind putting in “every little thing” was not a belief that insurance should cover “every little thing.” That’s just a cover story invented for the masses by the designers of Obamacare, who know that covering “every little thing” is not insurance.
What they have designed is a form of redistributive justice: by asking people to pay for a larger number of things they don’t want or need and will almost certainly never make claims for, they are increasing the pool of money available to pay for those things for other people who do want or need them and can’t pay for them. With more traditional insurance, people have more choice about what plans and coverage to get, although their choices are not infinite. Obamacare reduces those choices and, more importantly, specifies many more mandated items for coverage.
Universal health care could just as easily have been limited to catastrophic care and it would have been a ton less expensive. It purposely was not. Instead it was made as broad as possible in order to cover the everyday health needs of the poor. It’s okay if that’s what you want to do—and people understand that’s what you want to do, and vote for it—but then have single payer and be done with it. Obamacare was fundamentally a deception, once deeper than Obama’s lies about liking your plan and keeping it (although that was related). It was about the fundamental nature of the thing itself, and why the plans had to be “comprehensive” as the Obamacare framers defined it. It was to charge the somewhat-richer (in many cases, the middle-class) for the health care needs of the somewhat-poorer. That’s not the way it was described when they were debating it, nor was it the way it was described when it was promoted.
ObamaCare is an extreme case of liberal over reach. It’s one thing to tell people they must buy insurance, it’s another thing to tell people exactly what insurance they must buy.
It would be like if the government required everyone to have a car and then required purchase of a new BMW. They would say that a used Chevy just wasn’t good enough. That is precisely what some Democrats are saying about insurance people “liked.” Those are substandard crap policies, right?
neo-neocon, 5:50 — “Universal health care could just as easily have been limited to catastrophic care and it would have been a ton less expensive.”
It’s my understanding that this was the core of what Gov. Mitt Romney *originally* favored for Massachusetts.
It strikes me as somewhat akin to Social Security, initially conceived as a retirement *supplement*. Absolutist anti-statists may blanch even at Social Security — no, there’s no Constitutional justification for it, just as there isn’t for a host of other government programs, agencies, and departments — but it’s not invasive and it’s part of a safety net that even Reaganites happily accepted as, well, acceptable.
Much the same with catastrophic health insurance. Cover (virtually) everyone, not invasive and hopefully pretty simple [I haven’t taken the time to really think it through; you’ll have to pass it through my cognitive processes to find out what’s in it].
M J R:
That was part of what Romney wanted. He also wanted less regulation and limitation on what insurance companies could offer, and his exchanges were to be a market-based thing that would allow consumers to compare more easily. He also wanted, if I recall correctly, no business mandate, and he wanted the individual mandate penalty to be an amount that would be put in a fund that that person would draw from for his/her own health care. His original plan contained many many differences from Obamacare, and also with Romneycare once the Mass legislature got finished changing it.
“Don’t orgasm on my back and tell me it’s raining wine.”
That “give me your sandwich” analogy explains Obama and the Democrats exactly!
And the follow up question shows exactly how “morally bankrupt” the left is! The answer is wonderful and, sadly, I think most on the left won’t understand it.
“in the end, what it all boils down to …may just be whether you believe health care insurance is redistributive justice, or whether you believe it’s, you know, health care insurance.” neo
That is indeed the heart of the moral issue and upon that hangs the moral high ground.
In the video linked to, the young man states, “my understanding of Christ’s teachings was that taking care of the poor and sick was of the utmost importance and I was hoping you might talk about why you don’t think that universal health care isn’t a very important issue to Christians these days?”
Michael Shermer is somewhat flustered by this question and hesitantly opines that universal healthcare is a political rather than a religious issue.
Some will agree but by categorizing the issue as political rather than religious, the moral high ground is conceded.
I believe the moral component of health care is at the heart of the issue and thus cannot be abandoned without losing the emotional side of the debate.
IMO, bringing Jesus teachings into the debate is actually fortuitous. As is typical, liberals look at what Jesus taught, selectively…
“The poor you shall always have with you”
Jesus fed the multitudes but preached the value of teaching a man to fish, as the way to ameliorate poverty not providing him an entitlement.
The good Samaritan had, in his life, worked to have the resources to be able to assist.
Nor did Jesus heal all the sick and lame or even most of them.
Jesus advised rendering on to Caesar his due, not all that a man might have.
Jesus forgave but instructed that the woman “sin no more”
“You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” Abraham Lincoln
Teach a man willing to learn ‘how to fish’ and he becomes a productive member of society.
Give a man a fish in perpetuity and you destroy his self-esteem, his character and make of his dependence an eternal source of resentment.
Direct that resentment against a scapegoat (the evil greedy rich) and there is no limit to the power a man or party may acquire.
“Obamacare was supposed to be a program to insure the uninsured. Now we learn that what it really does is uninsure the insured.” Brit Hume
🙂
The plight of the uninsured was always a strawman. The truth was that everyone got healthcare. For the most part the uninsured got it at ERs, the most expensive form of care. Yes, people with chronic, pre-existing conditions had it bad, but they got care. Five years ago my wife shared a hospital room with a diabetic alcoholic that had no insurance and no money. Her treatment was actually more complete and caring than what my wife, a Medicare patient, received.
The real crisis in healthcare is, and continues to be, the cost. Obamacare does not reduce the cost, except through IPABs denying treatment and by lowering reimbursements for Medicaid/Medicare. Two things that can cut costs throughout the system are:
1. Tort reform.
2. Transparency of prices in hospitals.
It bears repeating that Obamacare is a pocket book issue that affects large numbers of middle class citizens. It is a gift to the Repubs, if they will but take advantage of it.
Portability of health insurance is key to reform, as well as being able to purchase insurance across state lines; a practice currently forbidden under the god awful Commerce Clause.
Government involvement in healthcare should be limited to licensure and safety practices and if a state’s citizens so desire, charitable programs for the truly needy. Churches and non-profits have no incentive to pick up any slack now.
Heck of a job, Barry.
leigh….
Near as I can tell, 0-care prohibits health care across county lines.
It’s a de facto situation that has still not penetrated the national perception.
0-care micro-Balkanizes the provision of medicine.
It’s actually cloned the Medicaid system — as against the Medicare system.
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If Barry wanted single-payer — why didn’t the Democrats merely expand Medicaid?
‘Nuff said.
The other big issue is the medical-pharma cartel.
Like education, the prices are rigged — with Big Government behind it all.
Why didn’t Barry increase the medical colleges? They are puny.
We graduate only 1/3 of the doctors America needs in our own institutions.
This is why you keep seeing no end of foreign born doctors in America. We’re stiffing the rest of the planet.
Their doctors are fleeing to America — because we’re out bidding all other nations for medical talent. — This includes nurses, too..
If we were a moral nation, we’d be exporting medical talent.
Socialized medicine, overseas, is a lie. Those politicians promise the Moon and deliver zilch. It’s not uncommon for foreign institutions to be locked into the 19th Century.
To hide such reality, the statistics are bent. That is all.
blert,
Expanding Medicaid is pretty much what he is going to end up doing, since nearly all the new sign-ups are for Medicaid and not Ocare.
Re: medical doctors. Who in their right mind would even consider a career in medicine given the bleak landscape before us? BO wants docs to work harder for less pay and hasn’t indemnified them from lawsuits.
I’d switch my career path to veterinarian medicine or chiropractics since neither of those is covered in the exchanges. Well, so far.
blert:
To answer your question: they didn’t have the votes.
It was actually Joe Lieberman who stopped it. Take a look. Also this.
Liebermann was is the last of the sane democrats, at least on the national scene.
But what do we do now? O’care is the law of the land. Lest it be struck down as a result of a lawsuit or collapses itself due to poorly planned and executed provisions of the law, we’re stuck with it aren’t we?
Anyone here sign up for it? Gonna sign up for it?
mike,
“Law of the land”? Please. It’s law, not scripture. Repeal it, just like the Volstead Act and numerous other bad laws that were “the law of the land.”
“whether you believe health care insurance is redistributive justice, or whether you believe it’s, you know, health care insurance.”
This is arguing over the moral basis for “reform,” and is a fool’s errand. Even if you somehow prove that it’s neither redistributive justice nor health care insurance, leftists will come up with another rationale…we’ve all seen the “moving goal posts” dance before, and it ends up wasting valuable time.
The one thing that can’t be argued against is reality: show that it won’t work. Then, it doesn’t matter what the rationale was.
Obamacare is more about the government gaining control over our lives. Redistribution and justice are just the lube for the leftists to accept it.
Democrats are really all about power, when you get down to it.
Matt_SE:
Both things matter.
Geoffrey: what these idiots don’t understand — since they haven’t actually read the Bible — is that it says YOU take take of the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger. It doesn’t say YOU take money from HIM to give to HER to set up a program which hire THEM to take care of the poor.
Blert — not only did they not increase medical colleges, they decreased them. AS provision of the lsaw, already in effect, REDUCES the Graduate Medical Education subsidy, which pays part of teaching hospitals’ costs in having interns and residents. Figure that one out!